Podunkfla wrote:Yep, Dean... I agree this is a great way to clean rusty iron. I've been using it for years to clean old hand planes and other rusty tools I collect. It works great and it's easy. I use a little 10 amp battery charger and a plastic dishpan or 5 gal. bucket.

I found an old metal handplane while swimming in the crystal clear and shallow waters of the New River near Virginia Tech back in the summer, and it was crusted up at least as bad as the grill lifter the other fellow posted the pic for in this thread. I only know what it is because I collect old tools. Otherwise, the average person would not probably have even known what it was with all the crusting on it. Anyway, is it possible to clean it up with this technique and have anything worth wasting time on? Or should I just toss it in the scrap iron recycling pile? I cannot see any marks on it obviously at this time.

Old Virginia Joe wrote:I found an old metal handplane while swimming in the crystal clear and shallow waters of the New River near Virginia Tech back in the summer, and it was crusted up at least as bad as the grill lifter the other fellow posted the pic for in this thread. I only know what it is because I collect old tools. Otherwise, the average person would not probably have even known what it was with all the crusting on it. Anyway, is it possible to clean it up with this technique and have anything worth wasting time on? Or should I just toss it in the scrap iron recycling pile? I cannot see any marks on it obviously at this time.

You must have been down at McCoy Falls swimming I would go ahead and try electro with the hand-plane should work

DO NOT use baking soda..wrong chemical..and do not use a new type battery charger that's automatic..won't come on unless you hook to a battery.
I found the washing soda at Public's here in Florida..and I'm going to use flax seed oil to re-season the pans i bought this weekend..first, i have to take back this modern POS of a charger.

One is sodium carbonate and the other is sodium bicarbonate. You can actually make washing soda from baking soda by baking the baking soda on a cookie sheet. I believe it's 400 degrees for an hour, but I may be wrong on that.